


Flipping Through The Scenes, It Slowly Comes

by Velocity_Owl87



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Genderswap, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velocity_Owl87/pseuds/Velocity_Owl87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has six realizations about Jo Watson, leading him to conclude he's not as unfeeling and as logical as he has always believed himself to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flipping Through The Scenes, It Slowly Comes

One

 For Jo's sake, he pretended to not watch her. To not make any deductions. 

(Well, out loud. He doesn't see the harm in noticing things and coming up with his own conclusions regarding them. She suspects that he's still deducing many things about her, but doesn't mind unless Sherlock forgets the modicum of tact he has learned. Which is not as often as it had been in the past)

He can't help but to notice. He always noticed. 

He notices when the strain of the day is too much, the lines around her mouth would tighten considerably. Her lips become thinned out and her eyes just look like cheap glass.

She sighed and  tended to touch her injured shoulder more. Her hand shook and she tended to spill the hot water when she was making tea. It upset  her and the frown became deeper and her lips went almost bloodless, but she didn't say anything. She simply mopped up the spills and offered him a mug of tea before almost limping to her chair. 

He watched her as he sipped his tea and watched as she slowly unwound. She didn't talk about what was bothering her and that was fine with him. He didn't think he could deal with having a heart to heart when he was too busy thinking about the next case or speculating as to when she'd finally give in and call her sister or Sean at the clinic and go for a drink to release some of the pent up emotion.

He wasn't the one to give her that release, so he simply watched as she got herself slowly put together after drinking her tea and was able to go upstairs, get dressed up and go out for the night after telling him her plans. 

As usual, he doesn't reply. He just watches her leave.

But he can't help the small twinge of something that sparks up after the door closes behind her. 

It puzzles him, since he is a sociopath. He doesn't care. Nor does he have feelings. 

He is satisfied with that explanation and goes into the kitchen to check on his experiments.

It takes him a long time to forget the spark of emotion though.

Two

After that night, Sherlock found himself watching Jo when he knew that she was distracted with something else. He wanted to see a different side of her. One that wasn't coloured by her nightmares or the cares of day to day living. He had seen that side enough to know that he didn't care for it much.

It didn't suit her and it made her seem older than she really was and that didn't agree with him somewhat. 

If pressed, he would say it had to do something with perception. He didn't give a damn for social mores or other's opinions of him. But he had to privately admit that now that he had gotten some kind of emotion, a small bit of feeling for her, he had started care whether she was unhappy or not. 

He knew that being with him, solving cases and facing danger had made her come back alive again. She had missed the wars she had fought in. Being with Sherlock had brought her a vitality that had been lacking ever since she had been invalided out of the army. 

It suited her and she needed to have it be nurtured, rather than worn down from the mundaneness of life. 

At first, he thought it would be cases. 

After a few mind-numbing ones though, she was exhausted and was falling asleep more often than not in her chair, depriving him of someone that could help him get deduction in a shorter amount of time. Or to simply keep him company and keep him tethered to reality lest he float away.

He switched tactics and started buying milk and trying to not put too many body parts in the fridge. Even though it was a hassle for him and his experiments, he did notice a significant change in Jo's demeanour and a twenty-five percent drop in her complaints about the state of the fridge and kitchen.

He liked that. 

She was happier. Not perfectly, but happier and that made her look younger and smile more. 

He liked her smiles. They made her face light up with a softness that made her beautiful.

Especially when she smiled at him.

This time, he didn't ignore the warmth that floods though him when he realized it.

The next time it comes, it is when he's injured himself.

It's a small wound. Almost superficial, but the tenderness that she employs when stitching up the knife cut almost takes his breath away. 

It is then that he understands why they clicked so well from the beginning.

Jo is his balance. 

His humanity, if he were so inclined. 

It makes sense.

Three

Sherlock usually doesn't think of Jo as a woman. She's his blogger. The person that isn't boring and helps him figure out deductions. The one that keeps him on task. It would be the same if she were a man.

Besides, it's not like she really goes out of her way to be feminine. She dresses plainly, in large, shapeless jumpers and neutral colours. The only thing that he would call feminine would be...

He frowned and started to think about it until he finally hit upon it. 

Her hair.

He hadn't truly known the length of it when he first saw her. She had it pulled up in a tight ponytail and had made a messy bun out of it that made it hard to tell. It was a compromise, that was obvious enough, between the army regulations and a civilian style. 

She kept it up for several weeks after they met, explaining to him the one time he had alluded to it that it was just a measure to keep her hair out of her face when she worked. 

She started leaving it down after she shot the cabbie. Only around the flat, but at least it wasn't pinned up all the time. 

It was then that Sherlock could see the varying shades of light brown, blonde and grey strands mixed up and moving together to create the unique ash colour of her hair. 

It is also then that he sees it's very long. Past her shoulder blades and close to her waist and he idly speculates why she would bother with so much hair. It would have been horrible to maintain. Especially in Afghanistan. 

But as he watches her one night after she's come out of the bathroom where she had taken a long shower, that it all clicked in the most mundane way possible and he nearly kicked himself for being so obtuse about the situation. 

She had been pulling her fingers through her hair, and smoothing an unscented styling product into it carefully before taking out a wooden comb and smoothing her hair down with it in careful strokes. 

The way that she worked her comb and fingers through the wet strands and how she gently pulled the tangles out made it clear what he had missed before. 

Jo never wore makeup if she could help it. Her clothes were simple and very plain, not all dressy or flashy or anything that could be remotely considered fashionable and up to the minute. She wears sensible shoes and he thinks that she's only worn perfume once, when she was going out on a date with Sean.

It's the only tie to femininity that she indulges in wholly and completely, he finally realizes. Jo is a woman that is bound by practicality and rationality. She has to be, considering her chosen professions.

He hair is the only area of her life that she can choose to be as fanciful as she possibly can.

He understands all of this in the time it takes her to comb out her hair and leave it lying loose to dry. 

Sherlock knows that he's waxing poetic and being a bit maudlin on top of that.

But it still doesn't stop him from wishing that Jo would keep her hair loose all the time.

(He knows he's being overly sentimental with this thought because he knows it would be simply impractical and pointless to have loose hair at work or on a crime scene. It would get in the way and contaminate the evidence and all sorts of myriad issues.)

He pushes the sentiment away, but doesn't delete it just yet.

Just like he doesn't delete the sight of her hair swinging behind her as she walked up to her room once it was completely dry.

Four

Sherlock had been sitting in the living room in his thinking pose, much to the amused exasperation of Jo as she sipped her tea and kept her eyes trained on the episode of Dr. Who on the telly. She was wearing loose track bottoms and a t shirt that has seen better days. She was relaxed and at ease and the picture wouldn't have roused anything in him if he hadn't noticed that she still kept her bra on.

It wasn't that he had a prurient interest in her breasts. Far from it. But he couldn't help but to notice them, since they weren't small by any stretch of the imagination. No matter how baggy her sweater dresses or other tops were, the fabric always clung to them. He wasn't the only one that noticed it. Lestrade and that idiot of Anderson and even Donovan noticed them.

(Donovan only noticed because she was jealous of the size and shape of them and the attention that Jo got without much effort. Sherlock had to admit that he had indulged in some Schadenfreude when he noticed Donovan's sulky glance at Jo's chest and how she had crossed her arms to cover her own modest bosom)

He knew that the unwanted attention was something that she had learned to tolerate. An annoying, but unavoidable side effect of how her body had developed. He could see her as a young woman, being embarrassed by the attention that her body had garnered her until she had learned how to deal with the situation. 

(He assumed that it was probably a combination of nonchalance and a devastating left hook.Whatever method she employed, it seemed to have worked)

That was the only reason that he could get away with noticing that she still had on a bra, even though she was supposed to be unwinding and enjoying some mindless telly while he shut her out and concentrated on the current case that Lestrade had directed their way. He shifted and her eyes slid in his direction, registering the movement, but not really acknowledging it. She was too engrossed in the episode to notice his leaning forward and then settling back down again.

She was wearing the black bra. The one that she likes over the others because it has no lace or any needless attachments on it and manages to hold her breasts in place comfortably without pressing them flat like her sports bras tend to do. 

Sherlock knows she doesn't like them and only wears them for the convenience. Even though she may not really like the unwanted attention that her breasts tend to garner her, she does have a sense of pride at their size and the way that they balance out her hips and enhance her figure.

She's not vain. He knows that. But he can understand being pleased with looking good for one's own pleasure. 

He just wonders why she decided to keep that one on, rather than change it.

(He entertains the brief thought that maybe, just maybe, she was doing it for his benefit. He squashes it ruthlessly and refuses to ever entertain the possibility again. But he doesn't delete it just yet)

When he heard the thunk of her empty mug hitting the carpet because it has fallen out of her slack grip, he understood.

He only stood up to go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

She would wake up soon enough.

But even with that knowledge, he still nudged her enough to startle her and get her moving to bed.

(He'd say it was a clumsy reflex. But he knew that she couldn't afford to wake up in pain to go into the clinic in the morning)

Five

It all clicked together in such a violent way that it made his mouth snap shut and his head hurt.

Her eyes were wide and bright in her ashy face as she came out and slowly unzipped the parka to reveal the vest of semtex she was forced into.

He barely registered Moriarty's mocking voice as he took the sight of Jo standing there, her mouth in a taut line as she kept quiet. She knew that they couldn't make it out of there without paying the price that the madman was asking of them.

It made his heart clench when he realized that she meant to offer herself up as tribute to save him again. She couldn't let him die and she was begging wordlessly for him to back away. He had to escape. To continue his work and go on as he always has gone on.

Before, she came into his life, he would have gone. Accepted her sacrifice and moved on with his life, solving cases and fighting the ever present boredom.

But she's his flat mate. His blogger. His tenuous line to humanity and he recognizes that if he walks away, or if he gives into Moriarty's demands, he will snap that thread and never regain it again. 

He realizes then that he's not truly the sociopath he's been portraying. Or maybe he was, and Jo was the one that eroded that side of him to make him human.

That was why he stayed and waited out whatever machinations Moriarty had planned, then stripped the vest and parka off of her rapidly after he had caught that knowing glint in Moriarty's eyes. 

He thought he had flung it far enough, but the strength of the explosion belied his belief.

He recalled Jo's quiet whimper. Something that must have been his name before it was all black.

Six

He wasn't used to intimacy. The closeness of bodies and minds and souls. 

He had to get used to it. Especially since Jo couldn't do much by herself after the incident at the pool. Not with a broken left arm and collar bone that had also aggravated her war wound, leaving her more or less helpless until everything healed.

He had to learn, while he helped her out. The more he touched her, the more he got to know her, the curve of her cheek, the shape of her ear, the slope of her shoulder, the thickness of the strands of hair as he ran his fingers through the soapy strands and helped her wash it clean. 

He took his time and catalogued all of the lines and curves of her body in those long weeks while she slowly healed and committed them to memory for the time that she would inevitably become more independent and need less of his administrations. 

He decided that, after a long night of thinking, he couldn't let it happen. And he wasn't one to suffer in silence or pine away for what he was too stubborn and too proud to admit. 

He kissed her that evening, before he had too much time to think about it and back away. After he had helped her wash her hair and comb out the tangles. He kissed her with urgency and clumsiness and passion he was positive he had no depth to feel before. 

It didn't matter to Jo. 

That was obvious once they had reluctantly pulled apart and she led him upstairs, to her bed.

END

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into the Sherlock fandom, born out of observations and dealings with people and conversations about Holmes and how he has changed because of Watson's humanity. I also have no idea why Watson ended up a woman in this. It honestly just ended up that way. The same with Sarah becoming Sean.


End file.
